Spanglish

"You'll Laugh. You'll Cry"  It's the most generic and familiar of movie poster blurbs. That junket-friendly quote would normally be an apt description of the audience reaction to any James L Brooks film. That writer-director is the man behind an impressive array of television series and funny Oscar-lauded tearjerkers such as Terms of Endearment , Broadcast News, and As Good as it Gets. If those three success stories have one thing in common (apart from their three hanky laughs) it's that they all feature awards-baiting roles for actresses playing funny, frazzled neurotic women with big hearts. It's not as misogynist as it sounds. Or it hasn't been up until Spanglish...

Much to Spanglish's discredit, the Brooks heroine has been cleaved in half. The loving maternal heart has gone to the character of Flor (Paz Vega), a Mexican immigrant who has taken a position doing the bidding of Deborah Clasky (Tea Léoni) the wealthy wife of a famous chef. Guess who gets the other half of the character, the frazzled neurotic? Unfortunately in this character split, neither woman retains the sense of humor that is often a redeeming factor in Brook's work; comedy can make neurosis palatable and maternal bleeding hearts less gooey with sentimentality.

 

Spanglish has more problems than just its duo of and duel between heroine and anti-heroine. It's attention is similarly divided. There are two families in crisis rather than one. One major subplot involving the career of Deborah's husband John Clasky (Adam Sandler) is also included which makes for a film with three leads and several important supporting characters, chief among them the hilarious Evelyn (Cloris Leachman), Deborah's boozy mother. With so many characters to include and dance around, the film feels overstuffed and shapeless. As can be expected in a Brooks production, there are several terrific individual lines. But as a whole his latest screenplay has severe attention deficit disorder or, rather, no discernment about which items to pay attention to.

For all of its narrative chaos, Spanglish might have still been fun to watch but for its two dimensional characterizations and odd messaging. Flor and her rapidly assimilating young daughter, John Clasky and his kids, and even the hard-drinking mother-in-law Evelyn are all portrayed as perfectly caring and mostly deeply responsible people. They are in the end and without fail, "good people." When all the characters in a story are as saintly as the heroes in a comic book film, where do you find the conflict in a narrative? Rest assured, find it Spanglish does. This movie has a villain; Tea Léoni has the thankless job of filling the role. Deborah Klasky is practically a demon. She cheats on her husband, intrudes and controls Flor's personal life, and belittles her daughter. Throughout the film it's implied that she's dragging two otherwise loving and perfect families down into the mud with her. Her wealth is often suggested as part of her character problem. Yet her husband, who is hardly a loser in the wealth game, never lets his good fortune diminish his basic good heartedness.

It's actually very odd to sit through a movie that isn't a comic book or action film that has it so in for a major character. And even then, those movies with their hero=good / villain=bad simplicity still manage to drum up more sympathy for the villains than this movie has for its frazzled mother. In a drawn out traffic jam of character arc climaxes late in the film Deborah has a hysterical breakdown when she realizes she may lose her husband due to her selfishness. As Brooks is often prone to do with meltdowns, this sequence is played for both tears and laughs. As her drunk mother comforts her through the tear soaked evening Deborah asks if she should fix her face. Evelyn, lovingly looking at her daughters tear-streaked reddened face, suggests that she'll "need a hose." It's one last joke at this demon wife's expense. I didn't laugh. My sympathies go entirely to the vilified. If I were Tea Léoni, I'd be crying too.  D+